Save Article

With Onus on Consumer,
Dutch Health-Care System
Slows Growth of Costs

By

Michael Connolly

Updated Sept. 6, 2007 12:01 a.m. ET

In most European countries, consumers have no idea what their health insurance costs because they are covered by national health-insurance plans financed by payroll taxes. But under a new system introduced in the Netherlands last year, which puts the onus on consumers to buy health care, the Dutch are keenly aware of their care's costs.

On a visit to Germany last year, Hans Hoogervorst, Dutch health minister until early this year and a major force in pushing through the overhaul, boasted that thanks to his country's switch...